MEDIATIZED RITUALS IN A GLOBAL ERA

Henry Mainsah

MEVIT4220/3220 MEDIA AND GLOBALIZATION

SPRING 2011

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Mediatized rituals

Mediatized rituals are those exceptional andperformative media phenomena that serve tosustain and/or mobilize collective sentiments andsolidarities on the basis of symbolization andsubjunctive orientation to what should or ought to be

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TYPOLOGY

•Celebratory media events

•Contested media events

•Media disasters

•Mediated scandals

•Mediatized public crisis

•Moral panics

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Mediatized ritual 1: Celebratorymedia events

Interrupts regular broadcasting routines

Reverence and ceremony

Monopolistic (all media channels focus on event)

Hegemonic

Live

Pulls large audiences

Organized outside of media

Integrate society and evoke renewal of loyalty

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Mediatized ritual 2: Conflictedmedia events

Tap into deep-seated conflicts that normally remainsubterranean – e.g. race, class, gender

Struggle for cultural hegemony in and through media event

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Mediatized ritual 3: Media disasters

Traumatic and historically momentous happenings

High media performativity

Circulate potent symbols

Mobilize solidarities

Authorities usually caught off-guard

Open up possibilities for political critique and censure

Often recycled media frames – “scale and body counts”“tragedy and trauma” “heroism” “miraculous escapes”“elites on parade”

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Mediatized ritual 4: Media scandals“Scandal serves as a term to delineate a breach in moral conductand authority. A media scandal occurs when private acts thatdisgrace or offend the idealized, dominant morality of a socialcommunity are made public and narrativized by the media,producing a range of effects from ideological and culturalretrenchment to disruption and change.” (Lull and Hinerman, 1997: 3,

emphasis in original)

Symbolic affairs

Public performances/ritual displays to salvageinstitutional/personal reputations.

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CASE:

GLOBAL MEDIATIZED SPORTS EVENTS

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Question

To what extent may global mega-media sportsevents such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cupbe constitutively suited to the carriage of the processof globalization:

1. Homogenization vs. Heterogenization

2. Cultural imperialism vs. cultural pluralism

3. Nationalism vs. cosmopolitanism

4. Hegemony of western culture vs. global equality

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International sporting events andglobalization

Kirsten Frandsen (in Hjarvard)

“TV coverage of the Olympics is a goodexample to use in a general description ofglobalization, because it is possible toobserve here a very direct link betweentechnological, economical and culturaldevelopments”

“...no other cultural event, no artsperformance, no church, no politicalmovement, no other international, includingthe United nations, indeed no other anythinghas ever managed to generate regularlyscheduled and predictable performanceswhich command anywhere the samefocused global attention as do the Olympicceremonies” (MacAloon, 1996: 3)

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Rituals of global sporting events

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Rituals of global sporting events

•Enormous effort made in producing a memorable spectacle that is as much forworld wide media consumption as for local live spectators.

•The content of global sporting TV broadcasts have highly repetitive and ritualisticfeatures:

– Opening and closing ceremonies

– Medal presentation ceremonies

– Olympic hymn/official song

– Olympic flag

– Olympic torch

– Parade of nations with national colors and flags

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Discourses framing sportingevents

Reach out and touch somebody’s hand

Make the world a better place if you can;

Come join the celebration as we salute the unity of every nation...

That we all care and it’s love and people everywhere...

We can change things if we start giving;

Why don’t you...reach out and touch?

(Lyrics from song played at opening and closing ceremonies during LosAngeles Olympics)

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Commercialization of global mediaevents

Pillars of commercialization strategy:– TV transmission rights

– Official sponsorship of event

– Sponsorship of individual teams

– Advertising rights

Commercialization of TV rights at three levels– Global

– Regional

– National

The role of the Internet– entry of anarchy in the allocation of coverage rights?

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Mediatization of global sporting events

“the televising of public occasions must meet the challenge not only ofrepresenting the event, but of offering the viewer a functional equivalentof the festive experience. By superimposing its own performance on theperformance as organized, by displaying its reactions to the reaction ofthe spectator, by proposing to compensate viewers for the directparticipation of which they are deprived, television becomes the primaryperformer in the enactment of public ceremonies” (Dayan and Katz, 1992:78)

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Planning for television: Olympics

Three main actors involved, forming a “circuit of culturalproduction”:

–The organizers - IOC/FIFA

–Corporate sponsors

–Media

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Planning for television

Frandsen - the TV text is actually created in the interaction between variousproducing organizations who operate on either national, regional, or global level:

– Special television organization provides “the international feed” a typeof homogenized parent material - visual signals and backgroundsounds to all television rights holders. Access negotiated through mainTV rights holder.

–At regional level - regional organizations such as the EBU (EuropeanBroadcasting Union take care of technical distribution of signals fromthe Games to its member organizations.

–At the national level - negotiation between different national TV stationsfor distribution of content.

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Customizing coverage for nationalconsumption

Mechanisms for the variation of coverage. (Roel Puijk, 2000):

•Selection - each channel has a lot to choose from and they try tofind those items that are most interesting from their perspective.

•Transformation

•Contextualization

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Audiences

Global audience figures - large and rising proportion of viewers(around 1 billion for the Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992 Olympics,2 billion for the Atlanta Games in 1996, 3.5 billion for Sydney andAthens Olympics)

Olympic TV studies characterize the experience of watching “live”televised events in terms of “one world”, global co-presence.Differences of age, status gender, ethnicity and culture seeminglysuperseded by shared passion for the events and its outcome.

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Tension between nationalistic sentiments and universal love ofsports:

–Spectator cultures play important role in representing nation byactuating symbolism in dress, songs, flags. Yet many sports alsopossess a world community of followers with cross-nationalpreferences for world players and teams.

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USA 1994 FIFA World CupAndreas Rogenhagen (1995) captures global impact of the USA 1994 FIFA world cup final game:

– Production lines stopped in Teheran car factory while workers moved to aspace where screening had been set up.

– In Cameroon, Mongo Faya’s harem was feasting, dancing and celebratingthroughout the event.

– In Argentina, fans chanted their support for the Italian side, allies in their archrivalry with Brazil.

– In Lapland, a couple watching the game ran out of vodka and orange.

– Street party in Rio moved into ecstasy and triumphant hysteria when ItalianRoberto Baggio missed penalty in shoot-out

– Despondent Italian fans in Turin were speechless and drained

– From monks in their monastery in Prague, crowds from Belarus to Costa Ricagathered around televisions from giant public screenings to small scale viewingof black and white portable sets.

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KOREA/JAPAN 2002 World CupAustralia

“Small football nation”

Did not qualify

Fans adopted favoriteteam

More diverse viewingpositions/sympathies

Netherlands

“Big football nation”

Did not qualify

Prior right-wing politicalwave

Support for nationalteams of immigrants´home nations

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KOREA/JAPAN 2002 World CupEngland – tabloid headlines:

‘The whole of England has been brought together with adream of victory. We want it, we need it, we crave it. Thecountry is speaking with one voice: DO IT FOR US!’

‘ENGLAND’S soccer heroes will inflict pain on the Danestoday by booting them out of the World Cup’

‘FINISH THE JOB LADS’

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To what extent are global mega-media sports eventssuch as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup suitedto the carriage of the process of globalization:

1. Homogenization vs. Heterogenization

2. Cultural imperialism vs. cultural pluralism

3. Nationalism vs. cosmopolitanism

4. Hegemony of western culture vs. global equality

Department of Media and Communication

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